Master Your Response Time

Most deal­er­ships close an aver­age of 5–7% of all inter­net leads, con­sid­er­ing leads from the com­pany web­site and third-party ven­dors. Is your sales staff trained to mas­ter response time every month? Ana­lyz­ing the call-to-close ratio could make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in monthly sales.

Here are a few ways to ana­lyze cur­rent prac­tices and increase your clos­ing ratio every month:

♦ How many calls do you make before giv­ing up? National sta­tis­tics show that it takes an aver­age of 9.1 attempts to get a cus­tomer on the phone. Are you spend­ing the time nec­es­sary to cre­ate a relationship?

♦ What time of day are you call­ing? Call­ing at 9:00 AM or 10:00 AM, after the team meet­ing might be con­ve­nient for your staff, but cus­tomers are likely out of the house or at work dur­ing that time. Sched­ule sales calls at a more con­ve­nient hour – when peo­ple are likely to answer and have time to dis­cuss their needs.

♦ What are you say­ing once you get some­one on the phone? Do you have a gen­eral sales script for staff to use and takes notes on, or are they trained to han­dle calls on the cuff? Hav­ing a pre-planned map could help guide cus­tomers in the right direc­tion and right into a sale.

♦ Who can help you set appoint­ments? Hir­ing an appoint­ment set­ter can help your sales staff focus more on clos­ing sales and less on admin­is­tra­tive tasks. Cre­ate an envi­ron­ment con­ducive to a higher clos­ing ratio.

The speed of response is equal to the rela­tion­ship you cre­ate with a cus­tomer and equal to the gross profit you expe­ri­ence on a sale. It’s very impor­tant to respond to peo­ple within 11–30 min­utes on a daily basis. The stores that have the high­est clos­ing ratios attribute that to a response of aver­age time 10–30 min­utes. How will your deal­er­ship mas­ter response this month?